The Importance of Mufflewomps
by Allicat9
Summary: Written for the Love at First Sight challenge. The weather forces Luna to change plans. But her quiet walk might prove more intresting then she could have imagined.


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**Love at first sight challenge. **

It was a terrible morning, sunny and everything. A perfectly dreadful day for hunting Mufflewomps, which as everyone who knew anything at all knew only came out during the most fierce storms so as to better lure unsuspecting (and quite wet) travelers into their nice warm caves. Once there, said unsuspecting traveler would be promptly and without very much fuss at all, be consumed in a great flurry of scaly wings and fur.

Yes, Luna Lovegood thought to herself, as she examined the perfectly clear sky with a thoughtful expression, it was a perfectly dreadful day for hunting Mufflewomps, but a wonderful day for a walk. If there was one thing her mother had taught her it was that one must always see the silver lining in terribly disappointing events such as missed opportunity to hunt bloodthirsty creatures of the dark.

But Luna was not one to sulk, and as soon as the idea of taking a walk had planted itself in her mind, she was taken with the idea. One never knew, she thought to herself, as she prepared herself a picnic lunch to bring along, she could perhaps spot a Blubberflounder or a stray Nidget, the day was full of possibilities.

Smiling dreamily to herself, she waved her wand, causing the food to fly into a basket, and, calling out a goodbye to her father, left the house, whistling to herself as she went.

As she walked, sometimes skipping, sometimes running, sometimes just spinning until her head felt topsy turvy, her thoughts roamed over the many turns and twists her life had taken over the past years. All unexpected, but all beautiful in hindsight.

She had finished her seventh year at Hogwarts, much to the surprise of Hermione Granger, who had perhaps surmised, though incorrectly, that Luna would simply do what she had always done, meaning wander off to investigate, what Hermione considered, her ludicrous ideas. But she had not; she had stayed to finish out her education, and had done rather well. She grinned to herself, Hermione had almost fainted when she had seen that Luna's D.A.D.A scores were better then hers had been.

Despite this success, not many people had wanted to hire her when she had graduated. She didn't interview well, apparently. Who knew that the head of the Portkey office did not want to hear about Jabberwalks? Who knew that the undersecretary Misuse of Muggle Artifacts did not want to debate the Qixicles? Luna certainly had not. They all thought she was funny, strange. It was not new for people to feel this way about Luna, she had been tormented at school because of her unconventional ideas. She hadn't minded it, but she'd needed a job.

It had been Neville Longbottom, her boyfriend at the time that had suggested that she try of a job in the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. To her surprise, she had actually managed to secure an entry level position in the Centaur Lesion office, a position that many of her peers in other offices found laughable, but one which she had found she enjoyed immensely and had worked tirelessly at for the last seven years.

And what a wondrous seven years it had been. She had seen all of her closest friends married, Harry to Ginny first, then Ron and Hermione (after much putting off and fussing on Hermione's part, apparently she hadn't wanted to 'rush into things'), and, most recently, Neville to Hannah Abbott, a girl he hadn't spoken two words to when they had been at school. It was sweet, really. Neville and Hannah's personalities were so suited for each other that it had to have been fate. It was true that she and Neville had dated for a while, three years to exact, and they cared for each other very much. Neville was sweet, kind and funny, but he had never quite understood her, something that had been both endearing and frustrating in one. They had parted amicably, still excellent friends, and it had been Luna that had introduced him to Hannah nearly two years ago. And just last week they had married in a perfectly wonderful ceremony. Luna wondered idly if he was back from his honeymoon yet, maybe she could send him an owl…

The sun broke into the valley in which Luna had been walking, flooding the flowering plain with light, making everything glisten with the morning dew. Luna laughed in delight as a gaggle of butterflies, disturbed by the sudden light, burst from a nearby bush and scattered, their colorfully transparent wings catching the sunlight magnificently so that it looked to Luna as if hundreds of tiny rainbows were moving across the ground.

"You have a beautiful laugh." The voice was unexpected, startling Luna, and male, which piqued her curiosity. She turned, a smile on her face, and was met with the oddest looking man she had ever seen (and that was saying something, for Luna had met an abundance of odd people).

He was tall, outrageously so, taller, she noted, than Ron Weasley. His pale neck seemed to go on forever, and was topped with the most angular face Luna had ever seen. In fact his face seemed to be all angles, from his high cheek bones to his severe jaw line. And his eyes, Luna, had to admit, were the most curious thing she had ever seen. They were such a light brown that they seemed almost yellow, rather like the color her tabby cat had. He was lean bordering on skinny, and his flamboyant ostrich patterned robes hung off him, waving in the wind. He seemed unsettled at her scrutiny, which Luna found amusing, and ran his long fingers through his chin length chestnut hair.

Seeming to decide something, the strange man rolled back on his heels, before lurching forward, hand extended towards Luna.

"HellomynameisRolfScamander." He gasped in one, so quickly that Luna heard not a word.

"I'm sorry," Luna smiled sweetly, "I couldn't understand you, I think the Pinweikies garbled your speech before it could reach me, but perhaps if you say it again…?"

The man grinned and said, this time more slowly, "Hello, my name is Rolf Scamander." He extended his hand towards her once more and this time she took it, a glowing grin gracing her features.

He was handsome, she realized as she grasped his much larger hand in hers, if not in the conventional way, but then, Luna mused, she had never really been one for conventional.

"Luna Lovegood." She answered as she released his hand, her own feeling strangely empty as it fell to her side once more.

"Do you come here often?" she asked pleasantly, determined to keep up the conversation with the intriguing Mr. Scamander.

"Uhh," he flushed, and Luna noticed how much more real he seemed when he did so, not so stiff, "I've actually only been coming here for the past month."

"I've found it's a lovely place to spot Riplents don't you?" her smile fading slightly when she realized how typically Loony that sounded. She didn't mind it when others thought her odd, but she, for some reason, couldn't bear it if this man, a man she'd known for two minutes, thought of her as Looney Lovegood. She found herself looking at the ground, unable to meet his eyes, and as his silence grew longer, she felt the dread grow in her stomach with each second he reminded quiet.

Finally, summoning the strength she knew not she possessed, she chanced a glance at his face. He did not look at her as though she was insane, but with a stunned incredulity that was both comical and nerve wracking. When her blue eyes met his yellow, he swallowed and spoke words that Luna had thought she would never hear from another person.

"I find this is an _excellent_ place to spot Riplents."

Luna gasped and smiled, and felt herself staring at Rolf as she had never stared at another person in her life, and found that he was doing similarly. Without further conversation they linked arms and together walked up the valley, talking about everything from the habits of Nargles to the behavior of Mufflewomps(witch Rolf agreed were very hard to catch). They debated the mating patterns of Quixicles and Luna discovered, to her delight, that Rolf wanted to hear all about Jabberwalks.

Morning turned to afternoon which turned to evening, and as Rolf walked her back down the lane to her father's house, Luna found that she had still not had her fill of Rolf's stimulating conversation, electric touch, or oddly beautiful eyes. She had started to doubt if she ever would. And though she had discovered that he lived just on the other side of the hills, she found the idea of being apart from him…distressing.

As the pair approached the steps, and Luna bid him a shy "goodnight", Rolf, for the second time that day, seemed to decide something. He leaped forward onto the step where she was perched, grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her firmly on the mouth. It was quite possibly, Luna decided later, the best twenty three seconds of her life.

When they broke apart, Rolf was gasping like he had just run a mile, and Luna could barley make out what he said next,

"I've only been going down to the valley because I wanted to see you."

And Luna stared at him, as though she had never heard anything like that before, and she hadn't, not from anyone. But Rolf just grinned at her and leaned down to whisper in her ear,

"What Luna, wackspert got your tongue?"

And it was at that very moment that Luna knew she was irrevocably in love with Rolf Scamander.

**FIN. **

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